The Mistcaller's card text did not accurately describe the behaviour of its Battlecry. A more accurate description might be, "Give all minions in your hand 1+/1+, and whenever you draw a minion give it +1/+1".[3] This behaviour was intended.[4] However, the developers admitted the way it was implemented was unideal.[5] Most notably, at no point were cards in the player's deck granted enchantments.

Firstly, The Mistcaller's Battlecry granted an enchantment to all minion cards in the player's hand, granting them +1/+1. The enchantment was not removed upon playing the minion, but could be removed through Silences or through returning the minion to the hand.[6][7] Like most in-hand enchantments, this could not be copied, using cards such as Mind Vision.[3]

Secondly, The Mistcaller's Battlecry put into place a permanent triggered effect that activated whenever the player drew a minion card, granting it a +1/+1 enchantment.[8] This included minions which were not in the player's deck at the time the Mistcaller was played, such as cards subsequently shuffled into the player's deck.[3] The triggered effect was unusual in that it was not attached to the Mistcaller itself, and remained in play even if the Mistcaller was removed.

Note that the triggered effect activated only upon drawing a card, and did not activate from other methods of adding cards to the hand, such as Discover, Tracking,[3] or put into hand effects. Neither did it activate when putting minions directly into the battlefield through put into battlefield effects.[3] This was not unexpected considering the card's underlying function, but contradicted the expected behaviour given the card's text. It also did not activate when minions were summoned by other effects, such as Dr. Boom or Mirror Entity.[9]

This card is a tempo loss when first played, but from then on all minions played will benefit from a +1/+1 boost to their stats. This greatly improves controlshaman, as the longer the game goes from when this is played, the more the shaman can take advantage of the +1/+1 effect. The effect is doubly important for Windfury minions and makes Al'Akir the Windlord an even better finisher than he already was.

"The kvaldir have returned to the coasts of Northrend and if left unchecked, they will prevent our supplies and reinforcements from arriving. One of them, known as Mistcaller Yngvar, has taken up residence in a cave on the western side of Hrothgar's Landing. There, he manipulates the mists to conceal the kvaldir and the sea beasts they command.

Take this charm and travel across the strait north of the tournament grounds, to Hrothgar's Landing. Find the mistcaller's cave and use the charm to reveal him."

An earlier iteration of The Mistcaller, which "broke down the nature" of Hearthstone's play

The original design for The Mistcaller was as "Mistcaller Yngvar", a 7 mana 6/7 with the text "Battlecry: Give your Totems +5 Health and Taunt." This fit the developers' desire for The Grand Tournament to "juice up" the shaman's synergy with its Hero Power Totemic Call as well as its other Totems, but wasn't quite enough of a "game-changing effect".[11]

The next iteration was as "The Mistcaller", a 10 mana 7/7 with the text "Taunt. When you take fatal damage while this is in your hand, prevent it and summon this." The design was based on a fan-made card that had featured in a community card creation competition, named "Spirit Healer". However, this design was a little too game-changing; the card's existence began to "play mindgames with everybody" with opponents assuming any shaman had a Mistcaller in hand, forcing them to change their entire strategy to compensate for the expected outcome of fatal damage, and holding back damage in case the Mistcaller appeared. According to Jason Chayes this "broke down the nature of what we're trying to do with Hearthstone", slowing down matches and making players second guess themselves. The design was again changed.[11]

"Version three" of The Mistcaller was a 5 mana 5/5 with the text "Taunt. Your Totems are Immune." The developers liked this design, but didn't feel it was exciting enough.[11]

The card was finally changed to its current design: a 6 mana 4/4 with the text "Battlecry: Give all minions in your hand and deck +1/+1." The design was based on one for a priest mechanic the developers were experimenting with at the time; it was instead put to use in the final version of The Mistcaller.[11]

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